The PGA Tour said Tuesday that it will be confirmed that the Sentinels will be unable to be held in January due to lack of irrigation after the season opener at Kapalua Resort in Hawaii.
The PGA Tour has started every year on Kapalua’s plantation courses since 1999, unless in 2001, when the season started in Australia and then went to Kapalua in West Maui.
What remains to be determined is where the mobile sentinels are — or when to move, for all PGA Tour winners in 2025 and the top 50 signature event in the FedEx Cup. It is scheduled to take place from January 8 to 11.
The decision will not affect the Sony Open which will open next week on Oahu.
PGA Tour Enterprises CEO Brian Rolapp spoke with Hawaii Governor Josh Green during a consultation with Wisconsin-based Sentinel Insurance, Kapalua Resort and Maui County.
“Due to ongoing drought conditions, water conservation requirements, agronomic conditions and logistical challenges, the PGA Tour has determined that the Sentinels in 2026 will not compete in the plantation courses in Capalua,” the tour said in a statement.
Logistics of suppliers and transport supplies were also considered to compete on an island in the central Pacific.
Maui has been dealing with drought conditions that affect 140,000 residents, and the water supply mandate is designed to prioritize the island’s needs.
“We support the PGA Tour decision considering the drought conditions facing Maui,” Green said in a statement. “Protect our water and support our communities. Sentinel has long demonstrated the beauty of Maui while also giving back to local nonprofits.”
Capalua officials said the tournament had $50 million in economic impact on the region.
The Sentinel reached a sponsorship agreement by 2035, amid the situation facing West Maui.
“As we have said over the years, Maui is a sentinel community, unlike our hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, which is still the case,” Stephanie Smith said. “Our communities are interconnected. We have made meaningful friendships on the island, and these relationships are bigger than the tournament,” said Stephanie Smith.
At the heart of the water dispute is the allegation that Maui land and pineapples are a century-old ditches that provide irrigation water to Capaluya and its residents without continuing maintenance, affecting the water descending from the mountain.
Tadashi Yanai, a Japanese billionaire who owns Kapalua and founded the clothing brand Uniqlo, Kapalua homeowner and Hua Momana Farms filed a lawsuit against MLP on August 18, saying it has not maintained the water system.
“This disrepair is not any act of God, the power of nature or something, that is why the user who needs it currently has no water,” the lawsuit said.
MLP said it had carried out “certain repairs and improvements to the ditch system” as directed by the Water Resources Management Commission, and all its actions were “consistent with the agreement between the MLP and the golf course”.
Kapalua Resort closed its two-month plantation on September 2 in hopes of conserving the golf course with very little irrigation allowed. However, when the Hawaiian Water Level Commissioner and the MLP proposed restrictions that prohibit all irrigation, they encountered setbacks.
Kapalua announced on Monday that the Bay Course will be closed indefinitely to transfer the allowed use of little irrigation to save the plantation.
Both sides have made charges against the other in recent weeks. In a statement last week, the MLP said that Capaluya used more than 1 million gallons per day, which is half the well, which led to strict restrictions.
Ty Management – Yanai’s company – says Kapalua’s irrigation has a central control system, and water is based on science. A company spokesperson said that even though the MLP and the Hawaii Water Bureau unexpectedly imposed an irrigation ban as the course was preparing to take steps to save irrigation, Kapaluya followed each task.
Kapalua has been part of the PGA Tour since a popular informal event at the Gulf Course in November 1982, and then a plantation after opening in 1991. This is the first design of Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
The PGA Tour champions have a season opener on Big Island from January 23 to 25, while the LPGA usually visits Hawaii in early October.
The next step is to determine when or when to compete, especially if Sony opens next week. The competition had been held for many years at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California before heading to Kapalua in 1999.
The PGA Tour adds Trump Doral near Miami to the 2026 schedule in April. The championship sponsor has not been announced yet.
